Archive | August 2012
August 29, 2012  

Ian McDonald and Mandeville

We thought better of using this picture to illustrate a show, but it’s too funny not to share. (The statue is Mandeville).

August 19, 2012  

London Olympics: hunting vegan food

Listener Helen Louise is going to the Paralympics – which take place two weeks after the Olympics – and wants to know what the vegan options have been at the games.

Vegan spectators have shared their successes and failures at finding vegan food with the world on social media – and with us directly.

So here is the story of vegan food at the Olympics, as heard in our third and final Olympics show, told via Twitter.

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August 13, 2012  

London Olympics: Closing Update with Vx, Animals in the Opening Ceremony, and Vegan Food

London Olympics: Closing Update

As the athletes celebrate their victories and defeats, and the Spice Girls rock the closing ceremony, we look back over the Olympics and update you on the vegan stories behind the games.

This show:

  • We catch up with the vegan stories behind the Olympics, like Sandra Hood, Pogocafe, and Frys
  • Ian updates you on the use of animals in the Opening Ceremony
  • Rudy tells us who’s been coming to Vx, the little vegan shop that was braced for a difficult Olympics
  • We sum up the experience of vegans looking for food at the Olympic Venues

(15 min) Play or download (14MB MP3) (other formats) (via iTunes)

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August 13, 2012  

Vegan Olympians: Too Good to Check?

Misleading or false stories (eg an offensive video game based on a real manhunt for a serial killer) can spread across the media because, with pressure on journalists to find good stories quickly, they were  “too good to check”.

So if professional journalists don’t always check their facts, it’s no surprise that bloggers can relax their criteria, especially when motivated to show that athletic feats can be powered by a plant based diet.

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August 9, 2012  

London Olympics: interview with Kara Lang, vegan Olympian, Canada soccer team

Kara Lang, Vegan Olympian

Kara Lang  holds the record as the youngest woman ever to score a goal in international soccer – but her passions also include vegan cupcakes.

Now retired from football, she took time out from her busy schedule as part of Canadian station CTV’s Olympic team to talk to me about her story, touring, and the vegan mentor she improbably found in her own national squad.

(10min) Play or download (9.5 MB MP3) (other formats) (via iTunes)

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August 3, 2012  

Is cheese really addictive?

In our Cheese show we considered the suggestion from the President of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), Neal Barnard, that dairy cheese is addictive. In this 2003 article entitled “Breaking the Food Seduction”, introducing his book of the same name, Dr. Barnard writes:

Cow’s milk—or the milk of any other species, for that matter—contains a protein called casein that breaks apart during digestion to release a whole host of opiates called casomorphins. A cup of cow’s milk contains about six grams of casein. Skim milk contains a bit more, and casein is concentrated in the production of cheese.

I looked into the references from Dr. Barnard’s book that PCRM was kind enough to send. But the analysis I offered in the show was that the idea that cheese is addictive is at best overstated and at worst wrong.

This is why.

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